We proceeded with our Maya work, establishing our projects and referencing the “Walker” model in my file. We started by making a selection set of the primary controls required for key framing and adding it to the animation tab’s shelf.Our main aim this week was to focus solely on the blocking phase. We began by designing our positions and creating our own reference video. My reference video was a simple stance in which the character steps from left to right. For the first frame, I posed the Walker leaning on its left hip to better see how the weight transfers left before moving right, and then again during the step. I utilized this approach to animate the weight shift.
We set the foot brake value to 100 and changed the foot roll and heel roll parameters to perfect the Walker’s position as needed.
At first, I mostly struggled with the positioning of the Walker, as it was leaning too much on one side. However, by studying my reference footage and receiving criticism from George on my blocking, I was able to improve the stance. After the critiques we were told to change our blocking to splines the next week.
Additionally, we had to design three positions based on inspiration from the internet or our designs. We were told to utilized the “Ultimate Bony” rigged character for this. To provide variation, I made a sword swinging pose, dance pose, and a pose of two characters attacking. I learned how to position a char
acter by following and analyzing the line of action correctly.
By creating the poses I got to learn about how joints in an actual human body works and how to balance a character properly by distributing the weight equally on both sides so that it does not feels like the character is falling.
